Steamy, oppressive Chickasaw Swamp in Pine Hill County, Mississippi is home to coonhounds, moonshine, and plenty of wildlife, including hot-blooded, irrepressible Rosamay Brewster. Do-gooder Lisa Hutchinson, eager to embark on her career as a welfare worker, has plenty to say about the fact that the rough-and-tumble Rosamay socializes with "the wrong kind." In Miss Lisa's opinion, Rosamay ought to be hauled into juvenile court or packed off to reform school because of her wild ways. But little ole Rosamay is as stubborn as they come, and she doesn't take too kindly to Lisa's high and mighty interfering approach. Things heat up considerably when both gals, each for very different reasons, set their sights on Eddie, an ex-Navy man who runs a small boat rental business and bootlegging operation on the outskirts of town. Jealousy and deceit cause tempers to rise and passions to quickly flare as Eddie struggles to sort out his emotions.

Handsome Mark Hale, defensive right tackle for the New York Comets, is looking forward to a summer of rest and relaxation on the beaches of California after completing a dismal football season. Before leaving New York, however, he indulges in a one-night stand with exotic, erotic Jennie Radford who eagerly seduces Mark as a prelude to asking him a favor. It seems that Jennie's son, ne'er-do-well playboy Tommy Radford, has dropped out of college, and is currently making the Las Vegas scene with movie mogul Puffy Lansing and "Los Toros," his gay cohorts who regularly perform outlandish stage shows in Vegas and L.A. Mark agrees to try and locate the missing Tommy amid the slot machines and roulette wheels. Along the way, he encounters plenty of distractions, including the irresistible bikini-clad Linda, "a knockout, this dame - loaded with sex," and the sultry Aggie, "all a man ever needed - in bed," who came to Vegas for a mad whirl of sex and thrills.

Tall, blonde, and crewcut, Mike Teasel is a struggling sculptor who seems to have lost every ounce of artistic inspiration he once possessed, and fears that his talent has deserted him forever. Hoping to revive his inner creative spark, he accepts a position as a sculpting instructor at an isolated art school on the sun-drenched California coast. The hedonistic lifestyle on campus suits Mike's mood perfectly as passion, money, and booze ignite his raging hormones in a never-ending series of sexual encounters with a trio of beautiful women who simply can't wait to jump into bed with him. Mike eagerly cavorts with the pliant and willing Violet, sex-hungry Merry, and voluptuous young Jetta, one of his students. Driven by his overpowering "lust for feminine flesh," Mike's sexual escapades are described in vivid detail and continue unabated as he attempts to recover his lost art.

Introducing the Veech family: a drab and shiftless bunch living in a ramshackle house in a small Michigan town. At the head of this coarse and impoverished tribe is Molly Veech, fat and easy-going, and Sam, her quiet, elderly husband. There are six children, including Mary, mistress of the town's biggest racketeer; Kenny, a handsome, brutal lazybones; Ernie, the good-looking but aggressive older brother; twins Jen and Josette, and 18-year old Carl. Mary's illegitmate daughter, Dorothy, and an alcoholic boarder named Jud Higgins also share space in the Veech household. Despite their constant squabbling and a variety of unpleasant incidents, Molly manages to hold her family together during the course of a hot and breathless summer. Written during the author's senior year in college, Whistle Stop won the Avery Hopwood Award for Fiction in 1940, and according to one critic, "if she can write this way at twenty-two, she should be good for a banning in Boston before she's twenty-five" (Clifton Fadiman, New York Times, May 17, 1941, p.88).